With some high-profile intervention, electrician Robert Veneziali is about to get the disability benefits he deserves.Veneziali hated going on disability. He's worked all his life and he's proud of it. But the type of multiple sclerosis he suffers from is unpredictable. One day he was fine, the next, he had hardly enough strength to call for help.
So when he called for help to the agency designed to provide working people with exactly that, he was devastated when that agency decided he wasn't sick enough to qualify for benefits.
Try back in another 18 months, they said. But he had a wife and three kids to support.
Veneziali's mother, Elaine, who had seen her son consumed by the disease, was having none of it. Last January, she called Rep. John Hall, D-Dover Plains, who had seen a report alleging that a bureaucratic "culture of denial" permeated some Social Security Administration offices.
Hall paid a well-publicized visit to Elaine Veniziali's home in February. He called her son's treatment "unconscionable." He threatened a federal inquiry.
Wednesday, Veneziali learned his appeal had been approved for disability benefits by an SSA review board. The benefits are retroactive to August, when he first applied for them. He'll get about $1,300 a month, plus about $1,200 for the kids.
Mar 28, 2008
Politician Helps In New York
From the Times Herald-Record of the Hudson Valley in New York:
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While MS is devastating to the person how has it, the problem often is the definition of disability in the law. To be disabled you must have a physical or mental condition which prevents you from doing substantial gainful work for a continuous period of 12 months. Because people with MS often work intermittently for years before they have a period of 12 months in which they cannot work such cases are difficult to evaluate. A return to work can be unsuccessful but this cannot be determined until the return to work fails. Only Congress can change the law to allow disability benefits to people who are expected to or do return to work within 12 months of the onset of their period of disability. The public often thinks of disability as a severe health problem rather than in terms of whether it keeps you from working for a full year.
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